Whiskey Lullaby
by Aksannyi
Summary: A haunting melody and a haunting tale of love and heartbreak. WARNING: Death. Based off the song of the same name. This is my first - and hopefully only - deathfic, so I'd love feedback.


**Whiskey Lullaby**

I don't know what's gotten into me today. I don't particularly like songfics, and I _really _don't like death fics. Yet somehow today, I got into a really bummed out mood and listened to a bunch of sad songs on my mp3 player, and this song really got me to thinking, and before I knew it, I was writing a depressing fic. Sorry!

If you have never heard this song, you need to, if only to hear the haunting melody of the lullaby itself.

**Warning: **Character death, this is your fair warning given. Don't like that, please turn back now, though I urge you to give it a chance.

**Spoilers: **Not many. Truth or Consequences only, I believe.

**Disclaimer: **They don't belong to me. That goes for both the song and the characters. It is not my intent to profit off of the use of either, unless you count reviews as profit. Since that's the only thing I hope to gain from this.

* * *

**She put him out  
Like the burnin' end of a midnight cigarette.**

It was on a park bench in the middle of April, among the blossoming trees and the springtime songs of the birds, where the end so swiftly came crashing down upon them. What should have become a beginning for two hearts turned into the beginning of a nightmare.

The beginning of the end.

They'd laughed together as they watched the squirrels chasing each other throughout the park, his arm around her shoulder and her head perched comfortably on his shoulder. With a burst of courage, he reached into his pants pocket and pulled out the ring, asking her to be his one and only, for the rest of their lives.

She turned her head away, looking at the ground, and she felt the tears welling up in her eyes. He felt the change immediately, and as she looked back up and into his eyes, she said the four words that pierced every piece of his heart.

"I can't marry you, Tony."

He said nothing, the shock apparent on his face, as she rejected his offer, with what seemed like regret in her eyes.

"I knew this day would come, and I have been dreading it. If it could be any other way ..." she trailed off.

"But why?" he asked, trying to force the tears he felt to stay inside. He could see that she loved him, that she wanted him.

"Because. I just simply can not." She looked at him, her eyes pleading with him to leave it be; to let it drop. Perhaps some day she would be able to explain why they could not have what their hearts so desperately wanted.

"So then..." he started, but was unable to finish. _That's it,_ he thought. How could we continue this way?

"I suppose this is the end," she said softly, a tear rolling down her cheek as she saw the flickers of fierce pain in his eyes. Her heart ached; she longed to reach out to him and kiss away the pain, ending the suffering they both felt as he pulled his hand from hers and moved to walk away.

He looked back at her briefly, for just a moment in time, giving her one last chance to take it all back, to take _him_ all back, but she only looked up at him with intense regret as he finally turned and walked away from her, for the last time as her lover.

"I still love you..." she whispered into the night, as she watched him walk into the night, looking as defeated as she felt.

**She broke his heart  
He spent his whole life tryin' to forget.**

He continued to walk down the street, finally allowing the tears in his eyes to break free and fall. He'd never felt so defeated, so lost, in his entire life.

The glowing pink neon of a corner bar beckoned to him, and before he knew it, he found himself drinking to dull the pain. Drinking to forget. He continued to pour the bitter whiskey down his throat, willing the concoction to erase the memory of his heart shattering into a million pieces as _she_ pushed him out of her life for the final time.

He set his glass down on the bar, motioning to the bartender that he required a refill. The bartender filled the order wordlessly, denying to comment on the state of the man before him. He'd seen it before. The man was broken, and no amount of whiskey would fix that.

"This one's on the house, buddy," the bartender said. Not that it would help anything.

Tony accepted the drink wordlessly. How on earth was he going to face her day after day? Show his broken shell of a self every day in the office. How was he going to pretend that he was still a whole man, not a shattered being whose very essence had been torn apart by five little words?

"_I can't marry you, Tony."_

For as long as he lived, he knew, those words would never leave his mind.

So he drank.

* * *

He woke up the next morning without even knowing how he'd even gotten back to his apartment. His clothes stank of strong liquor and his head pounded with every movement he made.

"_I can't marry you, Tony."_

It all came crashing back to him, the rejection, the break up, the alcohol.

Suddenly, the pain in his head didn't seem so terrible anymore in comparison to the dull ache in his soul.

"_I can't marry you, Tony."_

He reached in his pocket, and sure enough, there was the ring she didn't take. He rolled it between his thumb and forefinger for a moment, before letting it fall to the floor, and soon, he crumbled to the floor along with it, sobbing uncontrollably as the loss came flooding back to him in full force.

A half-empty bottle of bourbon lay beside his bed, obviously leftover from the night before, and he reached for it, taking a strong pull of the poison before stumbling to his feet and attempting to prepare himself for the day ahead.

**We watched him drink his pain away a little at a time**

He stumbled into work that morning less than ten minutes late, which was not at all unusual, but his disheveled appearance raised a few eyebrows. It was a very rare day, indeed, when Tony DiNozzo arrived at work looking any less than his absolute best.

Immediately, everyone sensed the strong tension between the two agents that were once so close. The closeness was gone, replaced instantly with a bitterness which made working together nearly impossible.

The team was called into Director Vance's office, where Agent Ziva David was reassigned to another team.

It didn't help matters, however, because they were still able to see each other from their desks, and their sad eyes spoke louder than any words the two could have spoken to each other. Ziva longed to go to him, to tell him she'd made a mistake. To change everything that was preventing her from marrying him. To end their suffering.

Her heart broke to watch him destroy himself.

It became even more apparent throughout the next few weeks that Tony did not want to be bothered by anyone, that he was short of temper, and as McGee came into a shouting match with him, he noticed the strong smell of alcohol on his breath.

Suddenly, it started to become obvious that Tony was drinking, and drinking heavily. He started making it into work later and later every day, and under the guise of "hot chicken soup" in a thermos, he was clearly drinking on the job.

It was such a stupid error that finally set Gibbs off, but the spilled coffee on the floor in front of the elevator was the breaking point.

"DiNozzo, conference room, _now!" _Tony followed him wordlessly, leaving McGee with the task of cleaning up the spilled coffee. For once, however, he didn't complain.

The team had bigger problems.

"You have a drinking problem," Gibbs stated.

"No, I don't. You do. Should stop drinking that Starbucks shit." Tony never saw the hand coming, but it sure hurt when it connected with the back of his skull.

"Get it under control, or you can start shopping for another job." And with that, Gibbs left his senior field agent, already planning the intervention he knew his agent would need.

He was puzzled by everything that had taken place. His two best agents had suddenly ceased talking with each other, and it caused a huge void on his team when Vance had been forced to transfer Ziva to another team. He had no idea what had caused the rift, or why Tony suddenly started drinking like it was the only thing that would save his soul.

He only hoped the man could get it under control before he did something he'd regret.

**But he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind  
Until the night...**

"_I can't marry you, Tony."_

It had been months since she spoke those words, and still he couldn't get them to leave him alone. Everywhere he went, he was reminded of the night she ceased being his.

No matter how much he drank.

He'd been placed on administrative leave from NCIS, pending rehabilitation.

He didn't care.

"_I can't marry you, Tony."_

As long as Ziva couldn't marry him, couldn't be with him, couldn't _love_ him, nothing mattered. The universe would continue to twirl around him, the madness could continue to surge through him, and it meant nothing.

The day had been particularly tough. Of all places _she_ could decide to eat lunch, she would choose the same deli where he'd decided to get a sandwich that afternoon.

She looked stunning, her dark brown curls blowing in the breeze as she opened the door and swiftly walked inside. She noticed him, and the mask she wore came down briefly, all of a moment, but he saw it.

Sadness.

Regret.

She looked away.

"_I can't marry you, Tony."_

He'd shoved the rest of his food down his throat and practically ran out to his car, driving recklessly home, stopping only to purchase another bottle of Jack before retiring for the night.

Ziva had run out of the deli, as if to chase him, but he had already been long gone when she made it outside. Regret flooded through her, and she resolved that they would talk soon, about everything. She couldn't live without him anymore.

"_Couldn't live without you, I guess."_

She walked back into the deli, defeated, and ate her meal slowly, not even noticing the taste of the food, and hardly even noticing when she'd finished.

* * *

Now, as he sat on the sofa, swigging long sips straight from the bottle, he couldn't get her words out of his mind. No matter how much he drank, no matter how much he tried to avoid her, to _forget _the sound of her voice, those five words always came crashing back to him, colliding with his memory like their lips once had in some seemingly faraway past life.

"_I can't marry you, Tony."_

That night, he drank more than he'd ever drank in his life. Killed the entire bottle of Jack, several beers, and pretty much every beverage remaining in his apartment. He stumbled around in a drunken stupor, the words pounding against his brain; his mind begging for freedom from her memory.

"_I can't marry you, Tony."_

It wouldn't stop. The words wouldn't retreat.

"_I can't marry you, Tony."_

The room swayed around him, as his vision blurred, and he stumbled about the apartment looking for some kind of haven, some kind of respite from the mantra flowing through his mind.

"_I can't marry you, Tony."_

He begged of his mind to make it stop. He begged of his heart to stop aching. He pleaded to the gods - if there were any gods - to end his suffering. He found a pen, his fingers stumbling to write, a few short words, anything to get his mind off her, anything to get his heart to stop hurting.

"_I can't marry you, Tony."_

Nothing worked, the words continued to swim around him, and as he felt the desperation clog his mind, he reached for the only thing that would finish the pain.

**He put that bottle to his head and pulled the trigger  
And finally drank away her memory**

Taking one final pull from the bottle in his hand, he whispered, "I'll always love you, Ziva," to the empty air around him, and swiftly lifted his gun to his head and pulled the trigger, silencing the sound of her voice in his mind forever. The blood stained the photograph of the two of them which sat on the table beside him, as their smiling faces were tarnished forever with the crimson liquid as his heart beat for the final time.

**Life is short but this time it was bigger  
Than the strength he had to get up off his knees**

Ziva sat up straight in bed, awakening suddenly with the feeling that something was horribly wrong. There was only one person from whom she got strong gut feelings, and she knew that she had to check on Tony, even after the months of not speaking, even after all of the hurt.

She dressed quickly and left her apartment, not even knowing what she would say to the man she had shattered. Perhaps now would be the time she could try, somehow, to repair the deep discord between them.

Seeing him earlier that day had made her think about all the months without him. She knew he'd turned to drinking again, and she knew that it was her fault.

What she didn't know is why she listened to anyone other than herself when it came to her relationship with Tony.

She hoped with all her heart that they could start again, wash away all of the pain with the strength of the love she knew they both felt.

**We found him with his face down in the pillow  
With a note that said I'll love her till I die**

She picked the lock to his apartment when he didn't answer, and was shocked at the state she found it in. Bottles were strewn everywhere, and the place absolutely reeked of alcohol. Clothing lay all over the place, and several of his belongings were knocked from their places on tables, many of which now lay broken on the floor.

She made her way through the hall, a strong sense of dread surrounding her. "Tony?" she called, somewhat quietly, on the off chance that he was asleep soundly and she would not have to wake him up.

When she opened the door to his bedroom, the sight caused her knees to give out, and she crumbled to the floor with a gasp. She had no idea how long she sat like that, sobs wracking her body, but when she finally managed to stand up again and make her way to him, she found the note beside a bloodstained photograph, sloppily scribbled in his handwriting, on the table beside his bed:

"_I told her I couldn't live without her. I'll love her till I die, and beyond."_

Her knees gave out again, and she collapsed to the floor for the second time that night, holding her hand to her face as she sobbed into it, repeating, "No," over and over to the emptiness that filled both the apartment and her heart.

**And when we buried him beneath the willow  
The angels sang a whiskey lullaby**

_La La La La La La La  
La La La La La La La..._

_La La La La La La La  
La La La La La La La..._

**The rumors flew  
But nobody knew how much she blamed herself**

Her first day back to work after the funeral, she felt as though all eyes were on her. They thought she couldn't hear their whispers, but she heard them, accusatory and full of truth.

"She found the body. Do you think she did it?"

"I wonder who the 'her' in the note was. Do you think it was Ziva?"

"She drove him to drink, and he killed himself."

The words flew around her, and she absorbed every last word of what was said. Everything was true. It was her fault that Tony was dead. She killed him.

Not directly, no, but she was to blame.

She saw McGee that day, and the only thing she could discern from his eyes was pity. He felt sorry for her. It was sickening, to be pitied.

He _knew._

Of course McGee knew what had taken place. He now knew that she and Tony had been together, and he now knew that she'd broken things off, and he now knew that he'd drunk himself into such a stupor that he'd shot himself in the head after first professing his love for her.

He'd found the photograph. Blood stained their smiling faces as they'd held each other tight, an eerie parallel to the way he'd found Tony's body with Ziva wrapped around it.

Blood was on Ziva's hands.

_I killed Tony. _

"_Couldn't live without you, I guess."_

The whispers surrounded her, wrapped around her like a tight cocoon, and she struggled to break free of them. Break free of the guilt which now surrounded her.

Every accusing stare.

Every sideways glance.

Every whispered word.

Her guilt was everywhere. She walked through life feeling as though everyone's eyes were on her. Feeling as though the blood that had spattered on Tony's wall was on her face, her shirt, her hands, and everyone could see it every time they looked at her.

How many times had she told him that something was not his fault? And yet, she couldn't shake this. She knew that Tony would not be dead right now if it were not for her actions. How many times would someone tell her it was not her fault?

Why would they not realize that it _was?_

**For years and years  
She tried to hide the whiskey on her breath**

It started almost innocently, just a stop on the way home to pick up some toilet paper, when she'd decided on a whim to pick up bourbon. A small voice in the back of her head told her it was a bad idea, but it was drowned out by a much louder voice.

Tony's voice.

"_Couldn't live without you, I guess."_

She drove home on auto-pilot, her body performing the motions of the drive itself while her mind wandered. Every place she passed reminded her of him, of the life they should have had.

If it weren't for her.

She finally reached her apartment and sat down, finally allowing the tears that had been threatening to fall all day to just pour from her eyes, wishing she could drown in them. She opened the bottle and began to drink.

Days began to pass, slowly at first, as she continued to go through the motions of tracking down suspects and collecting evidence. She'd go home at night and drown herself in her sorrows, accompanied by a bottle of scotch, or whiskey, or wine.

Anything, really.

She kept to herself, avoiding the sorrowful eyes that still seemed to follow her after still so many months since Tony's death. She slowly began to find herself drinking more and more, but still unable to pull back; unable to kill her guilt with alcohol.

**She finally drank her pain away a little at a time**

Ziva hid her drinking problem rather well, though those that were closest to her were still able to see the bloodshot eyes and the way she lacked focus. Abby pulled her aside one day, in an attempt to comfort her friend.

A friend she felt like she was losing, little by little, to the alcohol.

"Ziva, you know it's not your fault." It stopped her dead in her tracks. No one had spoken to her of it before now.

"Yes it is," she said sadly, and Abby grabbed her arm.

"No, it's not. You have to listen to me. You're going down the same exact road he was. I can see it. You can't let this destroy you, too."

Ziva looked her friend straight in the eyes then and spoke, her voice barely above a whisper: "It already has, Abby."

She turned and walked out of the lab, leaving her stunned friend behind her. She stepped into the elevator and reached into her cargo pants, pulling out a flask, from which she took a strong pull of the drink within. She leaned against the wall of the elevator, tears threatening to fall.

"No," she said to herself, and drank more of her poison before slipping the flask back into the oversized pocket. She would not cry. She would not let the pain in.

The elevator dinged, and as the doors opened, the room swam around her as she clumsily walked to her desk, where she once again felt the eyes upon her. Those accusing eyes. The endless day dragged on, until it became another endless day, with more endless staring, more endless whispering, more endless guilt.

And more and more, the dull ache in her heart could not be suppressed by the substances in her blood, though she tried, oh, she tried.

**But she never could get drunk enough to get him off her mind  
Until the night...**

It was his birthday.

The day passed almost without incident until she happened to notice what day it was, and the world came crashing down around her. Her flask ran out early that day, and she made up an excuse - "I'm feeling ill" - to leave work that day, stopping at a liquor store to stock up for the night ahead.

Some days were always much harder than others. While today, she should have been celebrating with him - his fortieth birthday - instead, she drank alone, trying to drown out the guilt she felt at letting the man she loved drink himself to suicide.

She'd taken down all of the pictures. Seeing his smiling face only reminded her of the bloodstained photograph she'd found by the bed, where his beautiful smile was covered in his own blood. She'd never been able to look at a single smiling picture of him again without seeing the red spatters all over his face.

She'd taken that grin from him.

The room began to swim around her, and she felt a wave of nausea coming on. She stumbled quickly into the bathroom, where she emptied the contents of her stomach into the porcelain.

Her mind flew back to another time, sitting in front of the toilet. The last time she'd thrown up.

Tony had been there, holding her hair and whispering words of comfort. She continued to vomit, all the while wishing that there was something on this planet that did not remind her of Tony.

Her stomach settled, and she got up from the floor, catching her reflection in the mirror as she did so, flinching as she caught a glimpse of what she'd become. Guilt did not become her, and neither did alcoholism. She'd avoided looking at herself for months, unable to meet the eyes of her peers as the guilt she felt at Tony's death had overwhelmed her, she'd found it equally difficult to meet her own eyes in the mirror.

Couldn't bring herself to look at her own face, knowing what she'd done. She'd had blood on her hands before, but this time, it was different.

On her way back to the living room, she found his photograph, the bloodstained one she'd taken from the scene, after all of the evidence had been processed. She didn't know why she'd kept it, but somehow knowing that it was close made her feel as though part of him was still with her. She held it in her hand as she stumbled back to the sofa.

She sat back down, and before she even realized it, she had her hand wrapped around the bottle of vodka and was taking drinks again, willing herself to forget what she'd seen in the mirror. Willing herself to forget Tony's bloodstained smile, even as she held proof of it in her hand. Willing herself to forget the sound of his voice in her ear, whispering sweet nothings. Telling her he-

"_Couldn't live without you, I guess."_

If only she could forget the sound of those words passing from his lips, the first of many admissions to the strength of his feelings for her. So many beautiful words he'd said to her, so many she would never forget, all of which made her heart ache to have just _one more chance_ to hold him and love him.

The time for second chances was over, though, and she knew that there would not be _one more chance _no matter how much she wished for it, and as she took the final drink from the bottle in her hand, a sudden clarity struck her, as she heard his voice in her ears one more time.

"_Couldn't live without you, I guess."_

"Couldn't die without me, either, Tony," she whispered to the photograph, grazing his face with her index finger.

**She put that bottle to her head and pulled the trigger  
And finally drank away his memory**

The gun felt light in her hands, lighter than it ever had before, and she felt, in her heart that perhaps it was because the gun would set her free. Free from her guilt and her pain, from her sorrow.

Free from this life, this tragedy, this hatred she felt for herself over the way she'd ended first their love, and then their lives. She felt the last painful beat of her heart, the shards of a broken soul compressing it like a vice, as she lifted the gun to her head and shot, the bloodstained photograph still in her hands.

**Life is short but this time it was bigger  
Than the strength she had to get up off her knees**

It wasn't until mid-morning, after she'd been several hours late for work, that people began to worry, and Gibbs sent McGee and Agent Hannah Smith to Ziva's apartment, to ensure that she was okay.

The whole thing seemed eerily familiar to McGee, as he opened the door to find the apartment in a similar disarray to that of Tony's when he'd gone there - at Ziva's phone call - to process the scene. Messy, with a strong smell of alcohol, and the smell of sadness, if such a thing had a smell.

He rounded the corner into the living room, and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her body.

**We found her with her face down in the pillow  
Clinging to his picture for dear life**

McGee recognized the photograph instantly. It was the same one he'd found at the scene of Tony's suicide, and it now had fresh bloodstains. The two lovers together in the photograph, in bloodstains, and in death.

As he called his boss to the scene, an intense sadness washed over him, and McGee couldn't stop the tears that flowed from his eyes as he allowed the world to move around him, continuing on in life while his two friends, the lovers, would finally be together for eternity in death.

**We laid her next to him beneath the willow  
While the angels sang a whiskey lullaby**

_La La La La La La La  
La La La La La La La..._

_La La La La La La La  
La La La La La La La..._

_

* * *

_

Now how's that for depressing? If you know the song, and you hear the "la la la" part while reading this, it's haunting, isn't it? I don't usually do this sort of thing, so hopefully I got it out of my system and I can go back to lighter, funny things, or at least hot, steamy things. Haha! Well I hope you enjoyed it regardless.


End file.
